12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.
The Hand Holding back the Red Dragon
(photos of dragon sculpture and the ‘hand of God’)
Short Sermon
This little collection of verses hold some valuable wisdom and encouragement, and in the time we have together this morning I want to unpack them a little for you, share an artwork with you to help those visual learners out there, and hopefully impart a message in keeping not just with James’ original intentions, but the deeper intentions of God as speaks through this passage to us.
You can all see this sculpture here, and I’ll circle back to it, but first who is James? Let’s get a bit of context here and speak broadly about this book before we dive into the verses that were read out earlier.
There’s a lot of Bible nerdy discussion on who is James, more than I thought there would be. Maybe like me you’re happy to take things in a much more straightforward way, but it seems as I have been working my way through some theological study at Ridley that there can be a whole other level of careful, highly analytic study to the various passages you and I read through the week. We really could get lost in all the possibilities of who the writer of James is, and which James he actually is. But I guess the most widely held status is that he is the brother of Jesus. And reading through James you can certainly see lots of parallels of the words of Jesus, and whether this is the brother James or not, the writer of this book is certainly sharing wisdom that is very much in keeping with the wisdom and encouragement of Jesus.
The book of James is essentially a collection of little sermons, little clusters of verses that encourage, rebuke, guide or affirm the reader. Many of the well-known Christian ideas of the how faith and action work together come from this book.
This little collection of verses that we are going to look at begins with a line echoing Jesus sermon on the mount and establishes what the following verses will address and then in verse 18 affirms that initial message and gives us some hope to drive us onwards.
Now we could read these verses and just say, ‘don’t be tempted, that’s bad. Try to stay focussed on Jesus”. And I could really hammer home and rave on about the evils of temptations. But I didn’t want to do that, I really wanted to leave you with a message and a visual (gesture to sculpture) that you’d hopefully remember and take home with you (in your minds, if you literally want to take the sculpture home, we’ll just have to discuss a reasonable price) to ponder through the week.
This word ‘temptation’ in the Greek is Peirasmos, and in some instances its translated as ‘Trial’; think of the line in the Lord’s Prayer ‘Lead us not into a time of trial but deliver us from evil’.
I want to explore both ‘trial’ and ‘temptation’ today, as I think it’s helpful for us to connect to the passage, as you might feel you need to endure or have endured trials, or maybe for you you’re wrestling with temptations and in this case this passage might really speak to you in that area. Importantly I think we need to remember, and the passage tells us this, that the tests, trials or temptations are not from God, He is not trying to make us fail.
So, let’s look at my sculpture. This red creature in the welded steel is pulling back, straining against the noose around its neck. The noose is held firmly by this rock, this solid grounded rock fist. It’s not moving, its steadfast, and its constant. As you’ve probably already worked out, that’s like God, the perfect Father, giving of gifts the unchanging constant in our lives. (see James 1:17: ‘…who does not change like shifting shadows’). And He’s there holding and wrestling the temptations and choking those trials we face.
But then we face that Red Dragon. With the wire frame of the sculpture: at first you see the creature, the distraction but if you look again you can see through it! (this is in contrast to the solid nature of the stone which you can’t see through, there is no hidden agenda or vagueness in Him.
I mentioned how James echoes his brother Jesus’ Beatitudes. Let’s look at those again and see how each of those phrases of Jesus can actually help us face some of our temptations:
Blessed is poor in spirit: showing humility, can counter the temptation for self-promotion or pride.
Blessed are those who mourn, this can counter the temptation to be cold in the face of grief or loss.
Blessed are the meek, here a way to counter the temptation towards hubris and arrogance.
Blessed are those that ‘hunger and thirst for righteousness’ counters the temptations to seeking only pleasure.
Blessed are those who are merciful, counters a temptation to seek revenge
Blessed are the pure in heart counters the temptation for hypocrisy or double standards.
And finally blessed are the peacemakers counters the temptations to stubbornly seek to win in a conflict no matter what.
But these of course a not easily achieved in the face of temptation. That dragon is strong, look at him tugging on that rope! James goes to great lengths in this passage to remind us that these temptations don’t come from Him. Only the good things come from Him, importantly He helps us to withstand!
So, what are your temptations, what are the things that stop us from Trusting God? What is the dragon in our lives that we all face every day? What dragon do you need God to help you wrestle away? God wants us to succeed to triumph because He knows we can’t on our own! He wills us towards success! So, will we cooperate with Him to gain that success?
Maybe for you this Dragon represents the trials you have endured? A trial where like Job, Satan was trying to steer you away from Him through your suffering?
When I originally made this piece, the dragon represented my son’s Leukaemia. This was a cancer that we never could get rid of and Ned went to be with Jesus in 2019. We don’t have the time to retell all his story or what we endured through his difficult treatment, constant complications and many relapses that took us to Melbourne, even Seattle and back to Melbourne for a variety of treatments. Uprooting our family for each of those massive moves, lives, careers, hopes and dreams on hold. When we returned to Tasmania in 2019, we thought it was done, but by February he has relapsed for the final time, and what was meant to be 3-6months was only a matter of weeks. Now grief isn’t linear, its comes and goes. And this loss of my son is not a singular moment of pain or a trial, but the times of trial for us began at diagnosis and continue as we now grieve.
But James reminds us that God’s goal is our endurance, a crown of life for us! I want to pause here for a moment. Because if like me you’ve experienced some immense trial in your life, a battle where Satan has tried to make you lose hope and to be tempted away from Him, then we need to pause here for a moment. It would be easy for me to barrel on now and jump straight to the Crown of Life and the Father of Heavenly Lights. But just as Jesus wept when His friend Lazarus died, I don’t think its right to jump straight to hope when we respond to those trials you face or have faced. Even though we have a God who has promised us the Crown of Life, we have a God who sits with us in those dark moments. So I want to pause now, just for a moment.
God sits with us in our time of trial. (pause)
He’s holding that dragon. (pause)
He’s right there weeping with you. (pause)
And now that we’ve acknowledged that we can appreciate and gain comfort in the words of Jesus ‘great is your reward in Heaven’ echoed here by James ‘[we] will receive the crown of life’
James mentions in verse 5 that wisdom is given to us by God and that He is the source of every ‘Good and Perfect Gift’. So how can we avail ourselves of this resource and be the ‘First fruits’ of His creation? What does that look like?
I’d like to finish with a passage from Peter that helps bring this all together. I’ve chosen the message paraphrase as I feel like it captures that divine embrace that is needed here:
1 Peter 4:12-13
Friends, when life gets really difficult don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner.
Let me pray.
‘God, thank you that you sit with us in our time of trial. Thank you that you help us combat our temptations. And ultimately God, we thank you that you have given us a good and perfect gift in your son. Thank you that in this Christmas season we can celebrate the gift. And as we see the glimmer lights of this festive season let us remember you as the Father of the Heavenly lights. Help us to be witness for you as you are revealed through us, Amen”